Timothy Allenhttp://humanplanet.com/timothyallen
Photographer & FilmmakerMon, 28 Jan 2019 11:39:28 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=5.0.316758253Off-the-gridhttp://humanplanet.com/timothyallen/2013/11/off-the-grid-emma-orbach-wales/
http://humanplanet.com/timothyallen/2013/11/off-the-grid-emma-orbach-wales/#commentsWed, 20 Nov 2013 16:18:06 +0000http://humanplanet.com/timothyallen/?p=7223Pembrokeshire, Wales Home is where the harp is I am sitting in a remote mud hut discussing ‘Big Brother’. Next to me an open fire radiates its welcoming orange cast, tinging all but the brilliant whites of the scene outside, trees freshly dusted with an icy coat of late January powder. Today, unusually, the topic of […]

I am sitting in a remote mud hut discussing ‘Big Brother’. Next to me an open fire radiates its welcoming orange cast, tinging all but the brilliant whites of the scene outside, trees freshly dusted with an icy coat of late January powder. Today, unusually, the topic of my conversation has nothing to do with any prophetic Orwellian nightmares of oppression but rather the popular reality TV programme. Two months ago I traveled to this secluded corner of west Wales in order to photograph Emma Orbach, a 59 year old lady who’s been living in this isolated woodland for over 13 years. She tells me that shortly after my images were published in the media she received a call from the producers of the gameshow asking if she would like to become a contestant on the next series. She declined I’m happy to say, but as it turns out her off-grid way of life has garnered a fair amount of media interest over the years.

“Vogue asked me if they could come and do a fashion shoot here once” she recalls. “At first, I thought to myself ‘Why not? That could be fun to see’.. and I told them they could come as long as they didn’t bring any motorised vehicles onto my land. However, after a few weeks of discussion I ended up having to decline my offer because they were insisting on bringing portaloos for the models. Portaloos! Here!… Can you imagine that?!”

It’s true, there could exist nothing more absurd in this wild place than the over sanitized intrusion of a portaloo. Emma, of course has an outdoor compost toilet in the woods near her hut. Inevitably, my mind runs amok with farcical visions of the comedy of errors that might have ensued here had those two worlds actually been allowed to collide. Can you imagine?!

On face value, Emma is a rather unusual candidate for this kind of alternative lifestyle. An Oxford graduate, she grew up in a Victorian Castle in Devises. “We weren’t rich” she admits, “We were quite poor actually and my mum and dad never specifically encouraged my love of nature. As a young child though, I do remember that I was most happiest up a tree in our garden. Me and my brother used to eat our meals up there.”

In the early 90’s Emma and her then husband bought a remote farm house a few fields away from the patch of land she now lives on. As her children got older she recalls having a strong calling to live in closer proximity to the nature spirits she perceived around her and consequently built her first mud hut in the woods before leaving the farm to live without electricity or running water. Emma is quick to confess that she never wanted to impose her unusual lifestyle choice on her children, especially since they hadn’t been brought up that way from the beginning.

“Living simply like this takes a lot of determination in such a complicated, materialistic consumer culture” she alludes. “However, I’m not a purist. My goal is not self-sufficiency. In my perfect future, there will be a lot more exchanging of goods between people but it’s nice to have a high level of food production… If the shops suddenly had nothing in them I would probably survive quite comfortably”

Vegetarian Emma keeps chickens and goats and grows an array of vegetables on a half-acre plot just outside her woodland. Trips to the nearby village are relatively frequent… “To collect supplies or visit my mother twice weekly”. The journey usually involves a long walk unless she’s feeling lazy in which case she can ride bareback on one of her horses, something that has in the past raised quite a few eyebrows in the local Welsh community formerly unfamiliar with alternative folk like herself.

She is keen to stress to me that she is definitely not obsessed with only living and eating on her land. “I enjoy a cream tea by the beach like anyone else” she concedes. “But I only ever tend to travel further than the local village when I’m visiting my children or showing visitors around the area. It’s normally a sociability thing. I certainly don’t do it because I miss the outside world”.

Many times during our conversations I find myself referring to the ‘outside world’. It’s unavoidable in a secret spot such as this. Following Emma down a meandering path, she balances an alabaster jar on her head during one of our trips to collect water from the stream. It strikes me that this ubiquitous chore which I so commonly encounter throughout the world was one that I had never actually witnessed first hand in my own country before.

Getting permission from the local council for the gathering of dwellings on Emma’s land has been a long and drawn out process since a surveying plane spotted their ‘lost tribe’ back in 1998. Fortunately for Emma and her neighbours, Pembrokeshire Coast National Park Authority’s progressive policy on sustainability finally resulted in the granting of planning permission after almost a decade of negotiations. Along with the correct paperwork came a council tax bill of £63 per month for each home which Emma earns from donations received running workshops in her woodland retreat.

Emma tells me that her own particular method of building has evolved over the years by trial and error revealing her secret recipe for plaster as ‘clay mud and horse manure’.

“It smells a bit initially, but after it dries its fine. However, I’ve honed my technique quite a bit over the years. The first time I tried it, the walls turned completely green after a few days with sprouting seeds!”.

“Would anything ever take you away from all this?” I ask. “What about illness?”

Emma is optimistic. “Definitely not…but to be honest, I’d rather just die if necessary than get taken away to survive in a world away from nature”. She recalls the council’s planners asking her how she planned to deal with this kind of lifestyle in her old age.

“I would be really happy if I just slipped over and died banging my head on a rock on the way to fetch water one day… that would suit me just fine!”.

It’s a strangely comforting thought since there’s no doubt that in the event of a serious accident, there would certainly be somewhat of a delay before the emergency services arrived. On my way out I ask Emma if I can return to visit her again some time. Her matter-of-fact reply reminds me not to get too carried away with my overly romantic fantasies about her isolated lifestyle.

“Just call me on the phone if you want to visit!” and she disappears back into her woods.

]]>http://humanplanet.com/timothyallen/2013/11/off-the-grid-emma-orbach-wales/feed/817223The Pilgrim’s Wayhttp://humanplanet.com/timothyallen/2013/10/gosainkunda-gosaikunda-nepal/
http://humanplanet.com/timothyallen/2013/10/gosainkunda-gosaikunda-nepal/#commentsFri, 25 Oct 2013 12:17:47 +0000http://humanplanet.com/timothyallen/?p=7064Gosaikunda, Langtang, Nepal ..Walking the path most traveled .. ‘Trekking’ has become a much maligned word of late. In Nepal I’ve heard it used to describe everything from an arduous summit climb to a morning stroll up a stone staircase. One factor that appears to be paramount in the categorization of a modern ‘trek’ is […]

.. ‘Trekking’ has become a much maligned word of late. In Nepal I’ve heard it used to describe everything from an arduous summit climb to a morning stroll up a stone staircase. One factor that appears to be paramount in the categorization of a modern ‘trek’ is whether or not its’ participants are using specialist equipment… trekking boots, rucksacks, trekking poles and the like. It would appear that by utilising the right equipment, pretty much anything in the Himalayas can be described as a trek these days. By this definition then, travelling up to the sacred Gosaikunda Lake in Nepal’s Langtang region at full moon would not be classed as a trek. It is a walk… very occasionally a climb, but most certainly a walk. August full moon falls in the heart of the rainy season, a time when I, like most foreign visitors are warned that ‘trekking’ in Langtang is dangerous and therefore ill-advisable. Fortunately, I’ve spent a fair amount of my life squinting at fearful murmurs and coy warnings and consequently, during my walk to the lake alongside thousands of pilgrims I only encountered a couple of other backpackers, both of whom seemed as surprised as me that no other non-Nepalis had bothered to come and enjoy such a great spectacle as this.

Whether you are a Hindu pilgrim, a local Jhankri shaman or like me, a nosey onlooker, you have two possible routes to get to Gosaikunda. From the south east your way is blocked by the hefty Laurebina pass at over 15000 ft and consequently, pilgrims coming this way from Kathmandu often choose to make the walk from Sundarijal (1460m) gaining altitude slowly over a few days before attempting the pass. The alternate, much shorter and far more popular route is from the north west starting at Dunche (1960m) a town that is serviced by a main road from Kathmandu. However, at this time of the year, the road is plagued by continuous land slides which in my case caused the bus journey to be split in to 3 parts. Over the best part of 15 hours we were forced to transfer between 3 different vehicles, walking about 2 km between each ride and making our dash over the treacherous landslips aided by local ‘spotters’ who sat above the areas of rockfall whilstling a signal when the route was clear of falling debris. The route on foot from Dunche is steep and gains altitude rapidly so you are advised to spend at least a couple of days climbing the one and a half vertical miles to the lake. I stopped a night in Chandanbari and then Laurebina which allowed me to avoid any major signs of altitude sickness. If however, you are unlucky enough to get sick, around the August full moon there are a fair few volunteer doctors stationed in tents along the route to the lake available to administer treatment. Speaking to one such group I was told that the station at the lake was almost exclusively visited by people suffering from altitude sickness, especially since some of the pilgrims were making the walk from Dunche in one single gruelling 24 hour march.

Due to the large numbers of pilgrims walking to the lake over the few days leading up to full moon, all along the route impromptu tented villages spring up to house and feed the weary travellers. At short notice, the only way to assure yourself a dry place to lay your head for the night is to utilise this resource and share your floor space with other people for a few hundred rupees (including food). If you’re after a room on your own then you’ll have to book one of the few guesthouses on the mountain in advance… something you will be charged a very healthy price for. Rooms in lodges during this time tend to be shared by large groups of pilgrims from Kathmandu and their prices increase dramatically up to Rp10,000 a night at the lake itself.

Both Gosaikunda Lake and the August full moon are revered by Hindus and local Shamans alike so there is plenty to see at this time of the year. Hindus come to the Lake to bathe away their sins on the date of Janai Purnima, the day they traditionally change the sacred thread (Janai) that is worn around the neck or hand all year. The local Tamang shamans on the other hand come here to dance, bang dhyangro drums and perform sacred rituals around the lake. As it turns out, this year it was noted that there was a distinct lack of shamans in attendance due to the fact that there had been a huge gathering of indigenous holy men happening in a very remote location to the east of Kyanjin Gumba just a few days prior. Held once every 7 years, it’s the kind of thing I would have loved to have visited but unfortunately my intelligence came in too late. Needless to say it’s been filed away in the ‘to do’ list for some another time…

Over the years I’ve spent quite a bit of time in the Himalayas. These days, in Nepal it’s very easy to fall into a love/hate relationship with trekking. On the one hand, the country certainly has some of the most spectacular mountain scenery to be found anywhere on earth. On the other though, the golden years of exploration by foot are well and truly over. Nepal’s most magnificent ancient pathways have become holiday trekking routes for tourists. Villages are often almost completely turned over to guesthouses and local culture along the popular treks has all but given way to Northface culture.

If you are keen to trek in any of Nepal’s better known national parks and you desire to witness some interesting culture I would highly recommend that you base your trip around a pilgrimage such as this. You could start by studying this list of holy days and then choose a walking route that takes you via a sacred location… there are plenty to choose from all around the Annapurna, Langtang and Everest regions. Walking with thousands of pilgrims off-season was an invigorating experience for me, something that could be in great contrast to your experience surrounded by hundreds of backpackers trekking the Anapurna circuit in November.

One inevitable question is ‘Do I need a guide?’. The simple answer is no. Certainly not if you think you’ll need one to lead the way. The pathway to Gosaikunda is very obvious and you will be accompanied by many other folk walking the same route. However, a guide may be useful to act as a translator. I chose to walk alone on this trip and I had a great time. It was the right decision for me because it forced me to make more personal effort interacting with people. Sometimes I find that using a guide makes me lazy, especially in a country such as Nepal where the guiding system is old and extremely well established.

.. Over the years I’ve visited my fair share of abandoned buildings. They’ve always held a very strong attraction for me. Somehow, their silent decaying facades offer the perfect blank canvas for an introverted imagination like mine… literally allowing me to conjure up vivid images of the past in my present. Unfortunately, I fear that this may be the best opportunity I have to experience the reality of time travel in my life time, something that I’ve fantasised about incessantly since I was a small child.

It has to be said, that when I was younger there were a hell of a lot more interesting derelict buildings around. These days, in my country at least, it’s very unfashionable to let a significant building die gracefully. Aside from the money-making implications, we tend to feel that we are somehow disrespecting our heritage by allowing them to decay, and so, often we attempt to stop the march of time by tidying them up and imprisoning them behind a red rope, preserving them in a most awkward state of disrepair for future generations to line up and look at from a viewing platform. The ironic thing is that abandoned buildings feel alive to me. They are involved in a beautiful natural process that the act of preservation will, by its nature, halt and kill.

Of course my opinion is an unfairly idealised and overly romantic one. The argument for preserving old buildings is a very strong one that I wholeheartedly support myself. However. On the rare occasions that I get to visit a forgotten building as magnificent as this one, I can’t help day dreaming about some of the incredible monumental relics I know back home and quietly wishing that a few more of them had been left to grow old and perish naturally rather than being unceremoniously hooked up to the proverbial life support machine of modern tourism as is so often the case these days.

Our first view of Buzludzha in the snow storm

I first heard about the Buzludzha monument (pronounced Buz’ol’ja) last summer when I was attending a photo festival in Bulgaria. Alongside me judging a photography competition was Alexander Ivanov, a Bulgarian photographer who had gained national notoriety after spending the last 10 years shooting ‘Bulgaria from the Air’. Back then he showed me some pictures of what looked to me like a cross between a flying saucer and Doctor Evil’s hideout perched atop a glorious mountain range.

I knew instantly that I had to go there and see it for myself.

Sure enough, 6 months later amidst the worst winter weather the country had experienced for many years, I was back in Bulgaria, and with the help of my friend Kaloyan Petrov we drove the 250km from Sofia to the edge of the Balkan Mountain range in which this magnificent building is located.

Every day we had a gruelling trek through deep snow to reach the monument. Photo: Kaloyan Petrov

Buzludha is Bulgaria’s largest ideological monument to Communism. Designed by architect Guéorguy Stoilov, more than 6000 workers were involved in its 7 year construction including 20 leading Bulgarian artists who worked for 18 months on the interior decoration. A small, universally expected donation from every citizen in the country formed a large portion of the funds required to build this impressive structure that was finally unveiled in 1981 on what was the 1300th anniversary of the foundation of the Bulgarian state.

Buried in the monument’s concrete structure, is a time capsule containing a message for future generations explaining the significance of the building.

… The monument during its glory days

The decor was a sumptuous mixture of marble and glass including a magnificent main hall containing 500sq metres of mosaic fresco depicting Bulgarian and Soviet communist themes.

The impressive former main auditorium

Mosaic frescoes around the gallery area

In 1989, Bulgaria’s bloodless revolution ended with the disbandment of the Bulgarian Communist Party. Ownership of the monument was ceded to the state and consequently it was left to ruin.

Today, this incredible derelict building stands as an iconic monument to an abandoned ideology.

. . .

A terrible snow storm surrounded the monument for the first 4 days we spent on the mountain. During our daily visits to the site, I did not once get to see this fantastic structure from a distance. Striding towards it through deep powder, it would only emerge from the dense white fog just a matter of metres away.

Finally, on the 5th day of our stay the weather began to change.

As the weather started to clear up, the monument began to reveal itself

It was always my plan to try and fly a microlight over the Balkan mountains to try and get a shot of Buzludzha from the air. Unfortunately, after waiting all week for the storm to clear, it didn’t look promising for a flight especially since my pilot had to depart imminently in order to travel to the other side of the country where he was beginning a new 6 month contract doing geological surveys. However, on his last day before leaving we decided to risk it even though the weather was still unpredictable. He forecast a 50/50 chance of seeing anything.

Above the clouds at -25°C

On the first attempt, we were forced to ascend to 1500ft to avoid the cloud cover over the mountains. (Flying through clouds in a microlight is not a good idea). We were up in the air for a good hour but came back with nothing more than some pretty shots of the tops of the clouds. My focusing finger went completely numb after just 10 minutes of flying even with my gloves on.

On the ground, we waited another few hours but the cloud didn’t budge. I was gutted. Then, at the eleventh hour, I pleaded with the pilot to take me back up and this time we decided to fly in low under the cloud. Needless to say, it was a quick flight… there and back in half and hour with 2 dangerously windy circumnavigations of the monument… probably the scariest 30 minutes of my recent life. Between the frost bitten fingers and frozen eyelids, I just about managed to get some snaps.

Making our approach to the ridge under cloud level

The monument’s impressive dome was originally covered with thirty tones of copper.

… and the two 12m tall stars either side of the top of its 70m tower were adorned with ruby coloured glass. Fabricated in Russia, these stars were three times larger than their counterparts at the Kremlin.

. . .

All week, thus far this mountain top had been an eerie and mysterious place for me, but since the snow had started to clear from the air it had really begun to open up and reveal itself along with the true majesty of its location.

When the cloud finally cleared, the view was spectacular

By sunset I was back on the ground and for the first time since we arrived I got to appreciate the full magnificence of Mount Buzludzha. This is a site of deep historical importance for Bulgaria’s socialist movement for it was on this spot in 1891 that a secret assembly led to the formation of the movement who’s influence spanned nearly­ 100 year’s of the country’s modern history.

The next morning I got up promptly at first light and trekked up to the monument in the most glorious dawn weather possible. It was as if I had been transported to a completely different place. So calm and serene.

Either side of the entrance are Socialist slogans written in large concrete Cyrillic letters

Above the entrance the words ‘Forget your past’ have been daubed in red paint.

Once inside, the deep snow took a bit of navigating…

Looking up one of the staircases into the main auditorium..

Many of the original mosaics remain intact…

… others have disappeared with the souvenir hunters

The old gallery area still maintains its phenomenal views of the Balkan mountain range

… such a magnificent spot for this beautiful building…

Buzludzha… If Blofeld was a real person… he would definitely live here

. . .

In September 2011, the Bulgarian cabinet transferred ownership of the monument to the Bulgarian Socialist party.

Bulgaria’s Prime Minister Boyko Borisov declared, “We shall let them take care of it because here it also holds true that a party which does not respect its past and its symbols has no future”.

They have still not come to an agreement about what to do with it.

To date, every year at the end of July, 30-40,000 Bulgarian Socialists still congregate at Buzludzha to mark the founding of the Bulgarian Social-Democratic Party.

… Research published earlier this year has suggested that there are an estimated 3.5 billion cameras currently in use across the globe. The reality of this mind blowing statistic will be all too familiar to those of you that travel and take photographs, inevitably meaning that in the prettier and more interesting parts of our planet, if you decide to point your camera at something you will more than likely be sharing your vision with at least one other digital sensor.

So what makes one person’s travel photos better than another’s?.. and how can you improve the quality of your own? Well, over my years of travelling it has become increasingly apparent to me that the truth about learning to shoot great images really only comes down to two things:

Life experience and camera experience.

Life experience is a very personal journey that every photographer essentially takes alone. The way to learn from the life experience of other photographers is to study their photographs and use them as inspiration for your own journey but as far as I’m concerned I can’t tell you how to let your life experience unfold. Only you can allow that process to happen.

Camera experience on the other hand is something that is a little easier to communicate. Camera experience represents the interface between your life experience and your photographs and is something that appears to evolve in a remarkably similar way across the careers of most photographers. As such, it is certainly something that I may be able to offer some of you some interesting insights into.

The internet is awash with tips on improving your photography which appear to ignore the simple fact that photography is an intuitive art form which owes everything to our innate human ability to understand what it is that we all find beautiful or interesting rather than to any set of cerebral laws that we could ever sit down and learn, so I’m not planning on making this an article about the rule of thirds or the ‘decisive moment’ or any of that stuff that I predict will blossom naturally in anyone who wholeheartedly practices this craft.

Instead, here I have summarized five simple practical choices that I made in my photography career over the years that definitely helped me to improve the quality of my images. If any of them strike a chord with you then give them a go… they worked for me.

. . .

1. When shooting people, stop using your long lens so much

After many years of perusing the portfolios of aspiring photographers, I can safely say that the single most common factor I see leading disillusioned travel photographers to accumulate huge collections of mediocre travel images is an unhealthy dependence upon using long lenses for shooting pictures of people. I hate to say it folks, but for most people the inconvenient truth about this addiction is the fact that it is born out of one thing and one thing only… fear.

I don’t think that it’s any coincidence that the English language has evolved the use of the verb ‘take‘ to describe the process of taking a picture. For me, this etymological hint serves as a reminder to us that when we photograph someone, maybe we shouldn’t overlook the fact that we are in fact taking something from them and that in just about every other aspects of our lives, when we take something from someone we normally ask first and say thank you afterwards.

Why should it be any different in photography? Asking and thanking involves connecting with people and long lenses make that a very easy thing to avoid. They tend to put a large distance, both physically and emotionally between you and the people you are photographing which does a fine job of insulating you from any potential intimate interaction.

I’ve seen it many times before. This lack of intimacy will show in your images.

Losing your big gun will mean that you will have to start connecting with your subjects again. I know all too well how nerve racking that process can be. Believe me when I say that even after all these years, I still get butterflies in my stomach when I have to approach a stranger in order to photograph them. That’s a fact of life for me but as far as I’m concerned a healthy and invigorating life involves addressing a lot of uncomfortable feelings like these, so if you recognize an aspect of yourself in what I’m saying then you will have to feel the fear and do it anyway if you want the power of intimacy to resonate within your images.

Don’t get me wrong. There is a place in this world for long lenses… I use a 200mm f2.8 and 400mm f5.6 but I would say that when I’m shooting people, I generally tend to use them in order to condense the background contents of my frame, often when I am photographing somebody in their environment. However, using a long lens to pick off people in a crowd like a sniper shooting his victims is certainly something that I don’t condone if you want to make your images stand out from the rest of the drones of travel photographers who are regularly shooting unexceptional head shots and portraiture on their long lenses.

Using a long lens to condense the background contents of an image (400mm)

“What about the fact that when you use a long lens you get more candid shots of people because they don’t know you’re taking their picture?”

Candid?.. Yes, possibly.. Dull? .. most definitely. I’ve often heard this argument used to justify hiding behind a camera, fostering laziness and producing bland, unengaging pictures IMO. Why not try and get a candid shot with a short lens?… now that’s a real skill.

Try this technique next time you decide to approach someone to take his or her picture. Instead of snapping them from a distance and leaving, try asking them if they wouldn’t mind if you accompanied them for a little while whilst you take some photos. If they say no, then thank them and move on. However, if they agree then in my experience before not too long they will have forgotten you are there, and your resulting images will have a far more intimate feel to them. This technique works particularly well when you are visiting people in their homes. Just make sure you can give the situation your full time and attention, something that will no doubt involve forgetting about your cameras at some point. The quality of your images will be a direct reflection of the degree to which you engage with both your subject and their environment… and in my experience, the most important aspects of this relationship will tend to unfold when your cameras are packed safely away in your bag.

2. Start using fast, prime lenses

Not a lot of people realise this, but a fixed 50mm f1.8 lens is probably the cheapest lens you can buy for your DSLR. Sadly, the first thing that many aspiring photographers do after they’ve spent a small fortune on a state-of-the-art digital camera is to go out and spend an equally exorbitant amount of money buying a zoom lens that, whilst it may well have the ‘latest’ auto focus and auto exposure technology, is very often stuck with an aperture that will only open as far as f3.5.

For me, some of the greatest photography happens in the places where light is delicate and soft. (See tip no. 4). These are the places in which prime lenses really come into their element. Rooms lit by fire light, dark corridors, very early mornings and late dusk… to get sharp punchy pictures in these kind of environments you will need a lens with an aperture that opens to at least f2.

I sometimes hear people say that you can compensate for a small aperture with ISO. This is a grave mistake in my opinion. If you believe this then you will be missing out on the incredible benefits of using fast fixed lenses. Even your expensive f2.8 zoom lens will struggle in a room lit by candlelight, but pop a relatively cheap 50mm f1.4 on to your body and the room will literally come alive with potential images.

When people sing the praises of prime lenses they tend to focus on the image phenomena that these lenses produce, in particular bokeh and the really shallow depth of field that fast primes can give you. Whilst I appreciate that these are great selling points for these lenses, what actually excites me more about using primes is the way that they can literally shift your whole attitude to image making by opening you up to new possibilities. Allowing you to venture into very low light situations is one obvious opportunity but many of the ways that primes can influence your photography tend to be a little more esoteric in my experience. Somehow, their visual clarity and simplicity will influence the way you choose to use them and that can have quite a profound effect on the kind of pictures you produce. Primes also compel you to zoom with your feet rather than the barrel of your lens offering you more dynamic perspectives on a situation and they do a great job of inspiring a more minimalist, uncomplicated view of photography that will definitely be reflected in your imagery.

Sometimes, I feel that zoom lenses encourage people to be a jack-of-all-trades whilst a beautiful fixed prime lens may gently tempt you to become a master of one. In my experience, once you’ve started using primes, it’s hard to go back.

85mm – f1.2 – 1/8000 sec – ISO 50

Over the years I’ve owned just about every lens there is, but I can honestly say there’s still nothing quite like the feeling of going out into a vast crowd of people at dusk with just a 50mm f1.2 and a smile. This is photography at its most Zen in my opinion.

If you’ve never owned a prime before, start by going out and buying yourself a second hand 50mm f1.8… it may just change your life.

3. Stop using auto exposure

In my experience, as your photography skills improve, you will naturally begin to reject the automatic functions on your camera. (excluding autofocus, which I class differently) The first one to go will no doubt be auto exposure. Cameras aren’t too bad at predicting exposure when you are shooting in ‘flat’ light, but other than that they are terribly naive when it comes to predicting what you want. Luckily for you, digital SLRs allow you to review an image instantly, so these days there is no excuse for messing up your exposure.

Once you start taking your photography seriously, controlling every aspect of your exposure will become imperative, especially if you follow my advice in tips no.2 and 4 and start shooting in low light situations.

I’ve been using roughly the same simple technique for manually exposing for many years now: Whilst making sure that I am always acutely aware of changes in light intensity, upon entering any situation the first thing I do is meter for the highlights in that place. This means making a correct exposure for the brightest part of the situation that I anticipate to include in my frame. Then I know that I can shoot away to my hearts content until I reframe or notice the light change, at which point I will adjust the aperture (or shutter speed) appropriately using the respective dials on my camera.

Pictures like this are impossible to shoot using auto exposure

More often than not, unless you are shooting outside on a really variable or contrasty day (which I don’t recommend anyway… see tip no. 4), or in a situation where a light source is erratic (e.g. Around fires burning at night) your exposure will be relatively constant and easy to follow, a skill that you will eventually end up doing subconsciously. However, in the beginning when you are learning to manually expose you may have to shoot a quick frame and check the exposure on the camera’s review screen every time you feel that the light intensity has changed within your frame. But don’t worry, it will become second nature the more you do it. I promise you.

4. Start shooting more photos outside of ‘office hours’

Time after time, photographers who are trying to break into the industry show me their travel portfolios and I’m amazed to see that 99 percent of their images were shot in the harsh light of broad daylight. There’s normally a very simple reason for this. Predominantly, people don’t like getting up early and by 5pm they are starting to feel hungry for dinner, but also I think that many photographers work office hours just because that’s what everyone else does and it makes their life easier.

Well, if you are one of those people then I’m afraid to say that your photography has hit a wall… one that you won’t overcome unless you start venturing into more delicate lighting situations. This means stepping outside of your tour guide’s working hours or if that isn’t possible, swallowing your fear and knocking on a few doors to go and visit people inside their homes and places of work during the day.

I can already hear a lot of you protesting already… “Many cultural events only happen in broad daylight!” Yes, this may be true, but I would say this to you… IMO one amazing image shot in fantastic light is worth a hundred OK frames shot in the harsh light of a sunny day. That’s my opinion. In my experience, you can always find a way to make at least one shot in great light, no matter what the situation. You may just have to think outside the box a bit and invest in a little extra effort to help make it happen.

Nothing beats the golden light of the setting sun

During the daytime when it is sunny, shooting indoors allows you to work with the harsh light outside. More often than not, all you need is a room with just a single window or a door letting light in to produce a lovely image. For an easy way to shoot a timeless portrait when the sun is too harsh outside, the easiest thing to do is bring your subject inside, position them facing the source of daylight and shoot from a position to their side like this..

If the light is too harsh outside, bring your subject indoors

It’s such a simple technique used by pro photographers the world over and one that can improve the quality of your portfolio no end. All it takes is a little extra organisational effort and some time to connect with the person you wish to photograph. Oh.. and try not to forget your please and thank you.

As far as I’m concerned, when you are working outside you should be aiming to shoot as much as you can around dawn and from late afternoon onwards including night time, when you can work with the many colour temperatures of man-made lighting around to enhance your images. If there is something or someone particular that you wish to photograph outside then my strong advice to you is to not even begin thinking about taking any pictures until the sun is low in the sky.

5. Switch to ‘back button focus’

My final tip is only for people who use auto focus, but I would hazard a guess that this is probably 100 percent of you. It’s a really simple technique that makes auto focusing and image composition much easier and faster.

As far as I know, all cameras come with the auto focus function assigned to the shutter button by default. Normally, half pressing it will cause the camera to focus before you fully depress the button to take the picture. If you wish to hold focus you are required to maintain this half-pressed position after every frame but often you end up refocusing each time you finish shooting a frame or rapid succession of frames.

By reassigning your auto focus function to a dedicated button on the back of the camera you can free up your shutter release button leaving it to do just one thing, the thing it does best… take a picture. With this new configuration, (Using a Canon DSLR in manual mode), your thumb is now used to both focus with the back button and adjust aperture on the wheel and your first finger shoots images with the shutter release and adjusts shutter speed with the top dial.

I normally get blank stares when I tell people about switching to this configuration, so don’t worry if you’re currently sitting there frowning at the screen. However, I have yet to meet anyone who went back to shutter button focus after they mastered this configuration. It takes a bit of getting used to in the beginning but once it becomes second nature you will wonder how you ever worked any other way.

I can’t speak for Nikon users, but for all you 5D Canonistas out there… in your C.FnIV:Operation/Others custom function menu, Shutter button/AF-ON button should be set to 3:AE lock/Metering + AF start and the AF-ON/AE lock button switch should be set to 1:Enable. (C.FnIV menu will then read: 3 1 0 0 0 0). This will make the (*) button on the top right back of the camera your auto focus button, and disable the auto focus on the shutter button.

Update: If you’re a Nikon user, HERE is a great tutorial on how to configure your camera for back button focusing. Thanks to @celenabeech for the link.

When a moving subject is not centred on your focal point, utilising back button focus will stop your camera trying to refocus each time you shoot a frame

. . .

A quick recap:

1. Face your fear and lose the addiction to your beloved long lens.

2. Let fast prime lenses take you on an adventure into the twilight.

3. Take back control of your camera by learning to manually expose.

4. Get up early, keep shooting until late and stay out of the midday sun.

5. Try back button auto focus. It worked for me and thousands of others.

]]>http://humanplanet.com/timothyallen/2011/07/take-better-travel-photographs/feed/635369Ich Bin Ein Berlinerhttp://humanplanet.com/timothyallen/2011/06/ich-bin-eine-berliner/
http://humanplanet.com/timothyallen/2011/06/ich-bin-eine-berliner/#commentsFri, 10 Jun 2011 10:14:18 +0000http://humanplanet.com/timothyallen/?p=5515Berlin, Germany … It’s been an incredibly long time since I posted anything on this blog… almost a month to the day in fact. I won’t bore you with excuses. Needless to say, as those of you who blog will know only too well, sometimes you just keep putting it off and off, and then […]

Bearpit Karaoke in Mauerpark.. Sundays in Prenzlauer Berg wouldn’t be the same without it

… It’s been an incredibly long time since I posted anything on this blog… almost a month to the day in fact. I won’t bore you with excuses. Needless to say, as those of you who blog will know only too well, sometimes you just keep putting it off and off, and then one day you realise it’s been too long and you try and hash something together in super quick time.

Anyway, after toying for some time now with the idea of spending more time in the incredibly vibrant city of Berlin, today I finally find myself sat at my computer amidst a mountain of packing boxes in a studio on Oderberger Straße at the heart of Berlin’s enthralling and eclectic neighbourhood of Prenzlauer Berg, on the first day of a summer period based over here instead of the UK.

So the time has come to finally update my website. Rather than try and write about something specific, I’ve decided to post a random bunch of pictures from the last month with a little rambling text and maybe a clip… without any consistent thread running throughout other than the fact that they were things that caught my eye over the last four weeks.

BTW, if you’re wondering what’s going on in the picture at the top of the post… that’s something that happens in my neighbourhood every Sunday afternoon in the summer on a site occupying a section of the old ‘death strip’ of the Berlin Wall, now a parkland (which also houses what is IMO the best flea market in Berlin).

Started a few years ago by an Irish fellow who goes by the name of Joe, Bearpit Karaoke has become quite an institution in these parts, regularly drawing a crowd of 2000 and along with it some really inspirational singers… others downright terrible I might add, but all giving it their best shot in front of the huge and welcoming crowd.

If you’re planning a trip to wonderful Berlin this summer, make sure you drop by on a Sunday afternoon and say hello… I’ll be the one perched on the front row nursing a sun burnt nose and cool bag full of Erdinger.

Another item crossed off the bucket list

So, I begin with an image that may be lost on many of you, but for me, represents the culmination of a long-nurtured dream to visit the small town of Buellton in Santa Barbara County, California… inspired by a mild obsession that I have with the film ‘Sideways‘.

If you’re still following me, then you may be interested to know that I can report back that the 06 Highliner, the Hitching Post’s flagship Pinot is wonderfully smooth and velvety with excellent depth…. (holds fingers to ear and squints) …with a soupçon of asparagus… and… um… a flutter of nutty Edam cheese… sorry, jokes aside… well worth the 10,000 mile round trip. Equally worth the journey was the chance to stay in the fantastically old school ‘Windmill Motel’ in Buellton (apparently unchanged since Sideways was filmed there over 6 years ago) … complete with outdoor jacuzzi, crappy breakfast buffet et al. A snip at just 69 bucks a night.

Needless to say, I was in my element.

Other parts of California revealed some wonderful surprises, like these glorious sand dunes at Mesquite Flat in Death Valley, where the setting sun lays an incredible purple hue on the towering Amargosa Range mountains behind.

When you need a little space to think

Hitching on the lost highway

Driving around the desert in California and Nevada was excellent fun… Incredibly long straight deserted roads. Remote 1950’s looking service stations with attached brothel (selling UFO paraphernalia at the reception). Scary looking trailer parks with a line of fifty mail boxes at the entrance and incredible panoramas that stretch on forever.

Unfortunately I forgot to bring my ipod with me so those lonely miles were accompanied by the dulcet tones of the intriguing Christian radio stations that appear to be the only thing you can pick up in your car around there… some of the most incredible phone-in shows I’ve ever heard in my life… ever… eerily good at enhancing the whole desert driving experience.

Unusually for Death Valley, famously the hottest place in the world with recorded temperatures topping 56.6°C, it actually snowed for 20 minutes while I was driving through it. According to the bar woman in nearby Beatty’s Sour Dough Saloon, it happens every now and then… nothing to write home about actually… ‘might just about warrant a mention in a blog post’.

Route 374. The stuff that road trip dreams are made of

Other things that I did this past month… whilst packing up my office in the UK I discovered an old 512 MB compact flash card that had been lost for over 4 years. On it were some pictures from the Sisters’ Meal Festival in Southwest China that I had never seen before. Here’s a few…

I must admit I am really quite happy with the results it gave me. That’s not a bad indictment from someone who’s been using Canon 5D’s since they first came out. The lens is super fast which lets me shoot in all the dark places I so love to go, and the image size is easily good enough for magazines.

Here’s a shot from Joshua Tree that shows you the kind of results you can get out of it. I’ve linked the picture to its hi-res file for reference purposes in case any of you are thinking about buying that body-lens combo.

Many thanks to Liz my hitchhiking road trip partner for being in so many of my pics!

Finally, one last thing that, like my pilgrimage to Buellton mentioned above, unfortunately may not connect with that many of you either. As I mentioned in my last post, whilst filming for Human Planet in L.A. a few weeks ago I discovered to my great surprise and delight, that The Dresden, a cool bar in Los Feliz that figures prominently in my favourite bromantic comedy of all time, ‘Swingers‘… is a real place and not just a film set as I might have previously suspected.

Upon discovering this, I knew I had to go there… mainly to seek out the truth about Marty and Elayne, the Dresden’s resident lounge Jazz duo who appear briefly in the movie, but also on the off chance that I might find Nikki sat alone at the bar drinking a Martini.

The Dresden is real! …and by far the best night out I had in America.

OK, so the Nikki thing was a long shot, but I have to say, I had an awesome night at The Dresden. Like a kid in a sweet shop I was. Chatting with Marty and Elayne it turns out that amazingly, they have been playing there 5 nights a week for over 18 years… and they certainly show no signs of stopping IMO. Incredible.

The highlight of the night was a vintage rendition of ‘Staying Alive‘ that they dedicated to yours truly, something that I tried to capture on my EP2 with limited success… So, for all you Swingers fans out there… here it is…

WARNING! Epic keyboard solo starts at 2:07 … not for the faint hearted.

(Sorry for the terrible focusing… and occasional strange noise interference over some of the clip… that was me using the vertical view finder after a few too many Margaritas… and breathing into the mike!)

]]>http://humanplanet.com/timothyallen/2011/06/ich-bin-eine-berliner/feed/115515Living Root Bridgeshttp://humanplanet.com/timothyallen/2011/03/living-root-bridges-bbc-human-planet/
http://humanplanet.com/timothyallen/2011/03/living-root-bridges-bbc-human-planet/#commentsMon, 21 Mar 2011 15:42:16 +0000http://humanplanet.com/timothyallen/?p=5200In north east India the Khasi tribe grow incredible living bridges that last for hundreds of years.

… In 2005 during a bout of backpacking in India I heard about Megahalaya‘s living root bridges from a fellow traveler I had met in Darjeeling. Although he confessed to never actually going there himself, he said he had heard from another person that the area called the East Khasi Hills was a fascinating and under explored place. I clearly remember trying to conjure up an image in my mind of what a living root bridge might look like, and to be honest, the best I could muster was something akin to a log across a small brook, a sight I’ve seen many times during various jungle treks the world over. In fact, when I think about it now, I’m amazed I ever bothered following up the lead on his recommendation, but I am so thankful that the lure of the North East States as a whole was strong enough to eventually get me on a train to Guwahati, which serves as the gateway to this part of India.

At that time there was no mention of this part of Meghalaya in any guide books. In fact, the Lonely Planet only devoted a few sparse pages to all seven of the North East frontier States due to the ongoing conflicts in the area with a general warning for tourists to stay away. Of course, a warning not to go somewhere is a very seductive thing to a person like myself. Experience has taught me that an intelligent and friendly traveller can avoid this type of internal conflict quite easily, since flash points tend to occur as isolated incidences in an otherwise peaceful and welcoming place.

Gawahati train station, Assam, my entry point into the NE States

The East Khasi Hills, site of the many living root bridges constructed by the Khasi tribe have one quite major claim to fame. The Guinness book of records regularly sites the village of Cherrapunjee as being the rainiest place on earth, an honour which is hotly disputed by neighbouring Mawsynram, about 10 miles to its east. Regardless of who’s right, it’s fair to say that this part of the world gets a hell of a lot of rain, and if you are intending to travel there yourself you may be advised to take this factor into account when planning your trip, with the monsoon generally happening between the months of May and October.

Nohkalikai Falls, Cherrapunjee in the dry season

In my opinion, apart from the living root bridges, the main reason to come to this part of Meghalaya is to meet the fantastic Khasi people who populate these hills which sit majestically overlooking the plains of Bangladesh. When I originally came here, I had a tentative plan to stay a week or so, but I ended up staying nearly a month and a half in all, returning on two occasions with friends.

The place I called home during that time was a lovely little village called Mawlynnong which I had heard about from a Canadian guy called James Perry who lived in Meghalaya’s capital Shillong with his Khasi wife and kids. Back then, before guidebooks existed for the area, all my information came from people I met on the ground and James was a wealth of knowledge on the Khasi tribe, having lived there for quite a while. As a native speaker, he was well involved in the culture of the area and gave me a list of local festivals and places of interest. More importantly, he advised me not to travel to the better known areas around Cherrapunjee to see living bridges but instead to base myself in Mawlynnong to its east as a place to explore the hills.

James had recently helped the Khasi get funding to build a community guesthouse in Mawlynnong with the aid of a government grant but admitted that the only visitors they had thus far attracted were Khasi tourists from Shillong who wanted to visit Mawlynnong, known locally as the ‘cleanest village in India’… a title the Khasi were very proud of, but one that not much of the rest of India had heard about.

In the Khasi Hills, women rule

My first visit to Mawlynnong was a beautiful eye opener and one that, looking back now with the benefit of hindsight, I can identify as a pivotal cross roads in my life that will live with me forever. On James’s instruction I located the yellow minibus at Shillong’s Bara Bazaar market which left for Mawlynnong and immediately fell in love with the Khasi way of life as I was packed into the back along with a handful of smiley welcoming folk who immediately took me under their collective wing.

About 4 extremely bumpy hours later (the road was still under construction) and after our midway tea stop at the village of Pynursla, we arrived at what looked to me like an exclusive garden centre from back home in the UK. This was Mawlynnong, a village who’s inhabitants all chip in a few rupees every month to pay for a village gardener who keeps the place immaculately clean and planted up with fantastic flowers and exotic plants from the surrounding forest. I was proudly shown to their shiny new guesthouse and taken out onto a veranda at the back that lead to a series of platforms through the forest canopy where I was offered tea.

Me editing photos high in the trees at the community guesthouse

And so began my love affair with the East Khasi Hills.

The Khasi are a matrilineal society (as oposed to a matriarchy), meaning that a family’s lineage is traced through the surname of the wife, with the youngest daughter inheriting all the family’s property. Clothed in their traditional Dhara, you can really feel the girl power when you spend a little time with the Khasi, something that I really love about their culture. There was a huge amount of community spirit in all the villages I visited, a fact that no doubt delighted the Welsh missionaries that first came to these hills in the 19th century from the Bangladeshi plains below.

One Sunday, after a painfully dull recited history of Welsh Baptist tradition at Mawlynnong’s one hundred year old church, I decided that I didn’t have the heart to tell them that church attendances in Wales had diminished so much in recent times that many churches had been sold off to private owners for conversion to luxury housing. Ironically, on a later visit, I discovered that one of the congregation was about to embark on a sponsored trip to Wales to spread the word to the folks back home.

The stone foundations of the King’s Way, still very much in use today

All Khasi villages are connected by a network of stone pathways known as the King’s way which traditionally kept the local betel nut trade alive with Shillong. Throughout this network, hundreds of living root bridges form the bridleways over the myriad of water channels that criss-cross the area. A few minutes walk from Mawlynnong is what I consider to be the most beautiful of all the bridges in the East Khasi Hills, namely the bridge at Wahthyllong which we featured in Human Planet.

Wahthyllong.. a beautiful sight to behold

When I tell people about this part of India, I can’t help drawing an analogy with the appearance of some of the sets in Lord of the Rings. For me, the bridge at Wahthyllong is the antithesis of this analogy. Uncertain of the age of the bridge, I’m estimating 60-100 years but from talking to the locals, all that I can be certain of is that it wasn’t planted by someone who is still alive today.

One of the most magical places I’ve ever been to

In the dry season, women come to this place to wash their clothes and a trip here at sunrise is an unforgetable experience. This is certainly a magical place, augmented by the beautiful nature of the Khasi people.

Organic engineering at its best

The view from above reveals the majesty of this masterpiece. Over the years, stones and earth have been lodged between the gaps of the banyan tree roots to form the beautiful pathway.

The view from below

… and underneath, the ancient organic mesh work weaves its beauty.

The development and upkeep of bridges is a community affair. Initially, a length of bamboo is secured across a river divide and a banyan plant, Ficus benghalensis is planted on each bank. Over the months and years, the roots and branches of the rapidly growing Ficus are trained along the bamboo until they meet in the middle and eventually supersede its support. At later stages in the evolution of the bridge, stones are inserted into the gaps and eventually become engulfed by the plant forming the beautiful walkways. Later still, the bridges are improved upon with the addition of hand rails and steps.

Creating a new hand rail

Lesser know than their cousins the living root bridges but equally as fascinating are the Khasi’s living root ladders.

The Khasi villages in this area sit atop a great plateau providing a comfortably cool climate. However, below them in the plains of Bangladesh exists an environment that is much more suitable for growing oranges. Consequently, many Khasi farmers have cultivated the land below them which is only accessible by traversing huge cliff faces like the ones you can see in the photo of Nohkalikai waterfall near the top of this page. Sensationally, even here the versatile banyan tree can weave its brilliance by way of the ladders and suspended walkways that the Khasi have built in order to be able to scale these sheer faces.

A suspended walkway

Believe it or not, the pathway you can see in the photo above has been suspended from roots and branches attached to the cliff face on the left of the image.

At a few places the pathways become ladders…

Ascending the cliff

… some more elaborate than others…

A scene that HR Giger could no doubt relate to

… but carefully fashioned into steps…

A living ladder

A few days trekking around these hills will bring you in contact with some lovely people and beautiful places. Be sure to take a guide from a village. I can recommend a great young fellow in Mawlynnong called Henry, if he still lives there.

One of the many beautiful waterfalls in the area

I went out hunting and fishing with Henry and his friends on many occasions in this magnificently wild landscape.

Hunting tree squirrels

The catch ready to cook

And the resulting barbecue

A secret fishing spot

Here are a few more pictures from the unforgettable time I spent with the Khasi people in the East Khasi Hills…

The community repair a bamboo bridge at Ringer village (not a living bridge)

The furniture stall opposite the bus stop for Mawlynnong

. . .

When I originally went to Mawlynnong, the handful of foreigners who had previously visited were mainly missionaries. That has definitely changed now. When the Human Planet film crew turned up a couple of years ago they found the original guestbook that I had given to the guesthouse as a present before I left. It was completely full and they had nearly filled another one too.

During my first trip there, I was asked by the village council for suggestions on how they could attract tourists to come to their corner of Meghalaya. Over the weeks I did the best that I could to warn them of the potential pitfalls caused by of an influx of outsiders, but they were extremely adamant that it was what they wanted. They are a very strong community of people and I had no doubt that they would deal with the inevitable increase of visitors in a responsible and socially acceptable way. Of course, since I left them, my pictures have appeared in magazines all over the world and last month the bridge near Mawlynnong was seen by millions of people in the Rivers episode of Human Planet as a result of my involvement in the programme, so in a few weeks time I will be travelling back to Mawlynnong to take them a copy of the Human Planet book and find out what changes have occurred since their little village has been in the world’s media spot light.

When I get back I will tell you all about it.

. . .

Resources for the independent traveller

Update 11/7/2011

Well, it appears that 5 years is a long time in NE India, since there have been some interesting developments in the Khasi Hills since I was last there. Mawlynnong, the once sleepy and undiscovered place has become a little overrun with tourists during the day. The unexpected thing for me however, is the fact that these tourists are Indian and not foreigners. It appears that home grown tourism in India has exploded since I was last here, a fact I noticed the moment I arrived back in Shillong to discover all my usual hotels fully booked.

Nongriat on the other hand, the village containing the somewhat more famous ‘double decker’ root bridge has remained relatively unaffected by this boom in indigenous travelling, mainly because there is still no road there and 4 wheels are most certainly the preferred mode of travel for your average Indian vacationer. Judging by the names in the guestbook of the village’s new ‘rest house’, in the rainy season they get about 2 visitors a week dropping by.

There’s no question that Mawlynnong IMO still has the best looking bridge nearby, but make sure you visit it first thing in the morning or last thing at night if you want to experience it the way I did. I would advise you to visit Mawlynnong and base yourself there for a few days whilst you explore the forest all around on some treks. In the evenings it’s as quiet as it ever was as few people stay over night. After that take a trip to Nongriat, where the bridges aren’t so good, but where you get a more a peaceful experience, more interaction with the locals and better swimming pools in the rivers.

How to get there:

To see the living root bridges you must first get to Shillong, the capital of Meghalaya. You can fly into Guwahati and get a share taxi all the way to Police Bazaar in Shillong for Rp400 per person. Alternatively, rent the whole taxi for Rp1600. If you arrive into Guwahati by train, catch a Sumo (The 11-seater jeeps that are the main form of transport around Meghalaya) from right outside the station. Guwahati to Shillong takes about 3 hours including a food stop.

To get to Mawlynnong, you must find the Khasi Hills Sumo stand at Bara Bazaar market.. it’s the first one you come to on the left going up the hill away from the market. It looks like a 2 storey car park with a ramp up the left hand side going to the second level. Look for the Pynursla and Sohra stands which are the first ones on your right at the top of the ramp. Mawlynnong Sumos aren’t marked but they tend to be parked behind the ones to Pynursla and they leave at 1pm sharp. The trip takes about 2 and a half hours and costs Rp80 including a 15 minute tea stop at Pynursla, the half way point. On market days in Pynursla, there is no direct sumo to Mawlynnong from Shillong, so you will have to change in Pynursla which is very easy… there are loads of vehicles going both ways on market day. There are no Sumos to Mawlynnong on a Sunday.

Mawlynnong now has 2 guesthouses and about 3 home-stay options. Prices are Rp2000 a night for the tree house, Rp350 for the guesthouse just off the turning circle and whatever you negotiate for a home-stay.

If you need a good guide in Mawlynnong, use Henry or someone he recommends. The going rate is Rp250 a day. Henry’s mobile is 09615043027.

Getting to Nongriat is a little more complicated. Look for the Sohra Sumo stand (same as above) and take the first available one to Sohra for Rp50 (Sohra is the Khasi name for Cherrapunjee). In Sohra you will most probably need to hire a small taxi to get you to Tyrna which is the village where the road ends. It’ll be about Rp200 and takes about half an hour. From Tyrna you have to start walking. The path is quite obvious but get a local to point you in the right direction at first, then descend the 2004 steps (yes, I counted them myself) down to Nong Thymmai and then on to Nongriat over 2 wire suspension bridges and a couple of root bridges. It should take you about 1 and a half hours. The guesthouse in Nongriat is just on the other side of the double decker bridge and costs about Rp400 a night. In the rainy season this is quite a walk and you might be advised to pay a local to carry your largest bag. The going rate is Rp100 per trip.

The monsoon in Meghalaya is generally between May and October, but it has fluctuated recently.

Click here to listen to a piece I did for BBC Radio 4 about matriliny in the East Khasi Hills

Clickhere to read an interview I did about travelling in India’s North East Frontier States

Clickhere to see a blog written by a guy I met in Nagaland who went to Mawlynnong

Clickhere to see a clip from Human Planet showing the living bridge near Mawlynnong

]]>http://humanplanet.com/timothyallen/2011/03/living-root-bridges-bbc-human-planet/feed/785200A Word in Your Shell-Likehttp://humanplanet.com/timothyallen/2011/03/thank-you/
http://humanplanet.com/timothyallen/2011/03/thank-you/#commentsSat, 05 Mar 2011 19:41:47 +0000http://humanplanet.com/timothyallen/?p=5101Pakistan … From a dusty old hotel room in Southern Pakistan, I would just like to say many, many thanks to those of you who have been sending me incredibly kind messages since BBC News ran an audio slide show of some of my photographs from Human Planet a couple of days ago. I really […]

… From a dusty old hotel room in Southern Pakistan, I would just like to say many, many thanks to those of you who have been sending me incredibly kind messages since BBC News ran an audio slide show of some of my photographs from Human Planet a couple of days ago. I really appreciate all your comments… they really do make it all worth while, so thank you for taking the time to spread the love.

Amongst all the emails there have also been a few recurring questions, so I’ve summarised my answers here for future reference.

I quit my job at a British Newspaper a few years ago and bought a one way ticket to Delhi. Just me, a Canon 5D, a few prime lenses and a huge smile. My biggest concern at the time was my mortgage. So, I sold my apartment and cut my overheads down to the bearest minimum. A year and a half later I returned home with some great pictures and a revitalised passion for both life and my photography. Meanwhile, whilst researching story ideas for the series, a fledging Human Planet team stumbled across my images from NE India on the web and the rest is history.

There are two important points to acknowledge here. Firstly, trying to predict the future is futile. However, as human beings we are all blessed with an inbuilt mechanism that tells us when we are moving in the right direction in life. It’s called enthusiasm, and in my opinion it forms the necessary essence of any fulfilling, creative lifestyle… in whatever line of work that might be. Enthusiasm is the gift that allows us to live in the moment without worrying about what lies ahead, so if you’ve got that niggling feeling in the pit of your stomach and you’re looking for a change in life then why not trust the feeling and let something that really enthuses you guide you in a new direction?

Second point… Whilst I was in India having the time of my life, I was spending a fraction of the money that I would have been parting with had I have remained in my well paid job back home. Relatively speaking, I was far better off. More importantly, I had the luxury of time again… something that gave my passion the space to naturally unfold once more. The space that I literally couldn’t afford back home.

If you are lucky enough to be reading this on your own personal computer then I am guessing that you also have access to sufficient funds to make the kind of trip I am talking about. You don’t need a state of the art camera. If you shop around a bit, a second hand mark 1 Canon 5D will set you back as little as 400 quid these days, and you can get hold of a used 50mm f1.8 for about 50 quid. Both these pieces of kit were my work horses on that trip along with the great value for money Canon 85mm f1.8.

The moral of this story… Without sounding too corny… follow your heart. And for those of you that think that a statement like that is too wishy-washy, then I’ll rephrase it to… persue the vocation in life that you feel most enthusiastic about. You know?… the one that you’d do regardless of how much it pays you. In my experience, if you live this way then no matter what transpires, you will be walking in the right direction in life.

The likelihood is that nothing will turn out the way you expect, so I would recommend not bothering with any expectations of the future. Just concern yourself with enjoying what you are doing in the moment. That’s the place where all the magic happens.

… and if you have discovered that photography is your passion then think yourself very lucky. Many people go through life never knowing such a feeling. Don’t waste it.

Get out there and meet your world

BTW. The photos in the BBC News slideshow were not chosen by me. For those of you interested in my own personal selection of favourite images from Human Planet, please click HERE

I have written a little more on the subject of becoming a photographer in my FAQsHERE

]]>http://humanplanet.com/timothyallen/2011/03/thank-you/feed/205101Comic Relief Desert Trekhttp://humanplanet.com/timothyallen/2011/03/comic-relief-desert-trek/
http://humanplanet.com/timothyallen/2011/03/comic-relief-desert-trek/#commentsThu, 03 Mar 2011 16:39:26 +0000http://humanplanet.com/timothyallen/?p=5048Kenya … I’ve been trying to find a spare moment to write a new post for a couple of weeks now. Two episodes of Human Planet have been and gone whilst I have been away in Africa with Comic Relief, and whilst I was actually using a satellite to send images back home daily, our […]

… I’ve been trying to find a spare moment to write a new post for a couple of weeks now. Two episodes of Human Planet have been and gone whilst I have been away in Africa with Comic Relief, and whilst I was actually using a satellite to send images back home daily, our work days were so long over there that there wasn’t any time to devote to blogging… something I will endeavour to rectify over the next few days here in Pakistan, in particular by writing about the Grasslands and Rivers episodes which both contain stories very close to my heart. However, for the time being, since the trip to Kenya is still fresh in my mind, I’ll cover that first.

Currently I am sat in an enchanting hotel room in a place called Sukkur. I’m over here shooting for Oxfam, my second such trip serving to highlight the continuing need for international help in this region of Pakistan which was devastated by last years terrible flooding.

Unusual 1970’s hotel room decor aside, I am nevertheless blessed with a table, chair, local mobile dongle for my laptop and a few hours to spare, so here’s a random selection of behind the scenes snaps from the 100km charity trek across Kenya’s Kaisut desert that I undertook last week with a group of British TV personalities.

The gang attempt a last minute re-pack

In the queue for life changing eye surgery

The British charity Sight Savers are a Comic Relief partner and as such, their work in Kenya was highlighted on this trip. In particular the incredibly simple but totally life changing cataract surgery that costs only 16 quid per eye.

Olly watches a cataract operation

The operation takes about 15 minutes

The view from our camping spot on the first night

Dermot and Kara enjoy a brew on day 1

The Samburu tribe were our guides and provided our camel porters

Dermot helps Peter up a hill

Blind from birth, Radio 4’s Peter White completed the 100km trek with the help of each member of the team.

Kara and Olly around the camp fire

The beautiful Kaisut Desert

Lorraine gets her morning pedicure

Out of everybody who undertook the trek, Lorraine Kelly suffered the most physical pain in my opinion. The intense 47 degree heat and horrific foot blisters nearly got the better of her on day 3, but she battled through to complete the walk with everyone else in the end.

Come Monday morning, only 2 days after the trek had finished and nursing 2 incredibly painful feet of my own, I watched her breakfast show from underneath a lovely warm duvet in the comfort of my own bed at home. Respect must go to Lorraine for going straight back to work, and double respect for reporting on the Oscars live in her slippers because her regular shoes were hurting too much!

Dermot O'Weary

The striking Samburu people

The glamourous faces of live radio

Throughout the trek, the team were broadcasting live to Radio 1 via Scott Mills using a BGAN to connect to a satellite link.

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http://humanplanet.com/timothyallen/2011/03/the-industry-standard/#commentsWed, 02 Mar 2011 17:44:20 +0000http://humanplanet.com/timothyallen/?p=5343Los Angeles … I’ve been in L.A. for the last week doing some press for the launch of Human Planet in the USA tonight on the Discovery Channel. One of the most enjoyable was a piece we filmed for NBC’s Carson Daly show, a late night magazine programme that appears to be something akin to […]

… I’ve been in L.A. for the last week doing some press for the launch of Human Planet in the USA tonight on the Discovery Channel. One of the most enjoyable was a piece we filmed for NBC’s Carson Daly show, a late night magazine programme that appears to be something akin to a less cynical version of the old Channel 4 show ‘The Word’ for those of you Brits that can remember back that far…

Oh… and without anything remotely resembling ‘The Hopefuls’ you’ll be please to know.

Anyway, interestingly the whole programme is shot on Canon digital SLRs, which was an eye opener for me at least… along with the fact that there are snow-capped peaks overlooking Hollywood, something I discovered for the first time whilst we were shooting the sequence on top of the Andaz Hotel in West Hollywood.

That wasn’t the only exciting new thing I discovered here on this trip, and as a result, from now on I vow never to cast my sneering judgemental eye upon any American tourists is see walking aimlessly down West London’s Portobello Road looking for the blue door from ‘Notting Hill’…

psssst!… The Dresden is a real place! … and Marty and Elayne are real people who still work there 5 nights a week!

My mind boggles… as the eyes of the Los Angeleans amongst you roll back in their sockets…

Anyway, more on that in my next post along with news of the other somewhat sad American pilgrimage that I am about to embark upon… a mission to find Buellton in Santa Barbara County and order a bottle of Highliner in the ‘Hitching Post’. In the meantime, here’s my bit from Carson Daly.

]]>http://humanplanet.com/timothyallen/2011/03/the-industry-standard/feed/105343Boys to Menhttp://humanplanet.com/timothyallen/2011/02/mountains-life-in-thin-air/
http://humanplanet.com/timothyallen/2011/02/mountains-life-in-thin-air/#commentsThu, 10 Feb 2011 18:08:30 +0000http://humanplanet.com/timothyallen/?p=4931The story of two young men from opposite sides of the world who both appeared in the BBC's Human Planet

… Tonight’s episode of Human Planet will take you high up into the mountains as it serves up its weekly offering of incredible tales from around the globe. Picking my favourite sequence from this episode has been extremely difficult since two of the stories really touched my heart. Consequently, I present you both in this post. In each one, the main characters are teenage boys, straddling that tricky transition from boy to manhood, something that I, like all men on our planet can easily relate to, no matter which culture or tradition we hail from.

12 year old Ethiopian mountain farmer, Dereje

Living on different continents, seven thousand kilometres apart, these two young men will never meet each other. Someday soon, however, they will at least know of each other. As I speak, a copy of the Human Planet book is winging its way to the Altai Mountains of Western Mongolia, a journey that will take over a month before it reaches its destination. Getting a copy to Dereje at his remote farm in Ethiopia’s Simien Mountains is a much trickier proposition, and one that I must confess that I haven’t quite figured out yet, but if any of you adventurous types reading this are heading out that way in the not-too-distant future, then please do drop me a line if you think you could act as a courier… I have the GPS co ordinates of their farm, accessible only by foot, but well worth the journey I promise you.

Boy and nature

Both Dereje (pronounced Dare-a-jay) and Berik have extremely close relationships with magnificent animals.

Six months before I first met Berik, a film crew had already shot him climbing down a cliff face in search of the eagle chick that was to become the majestic bird that now graces the front cover of the Human Planet book. In stark contrast, Dereje’s relationship with the incredibly formidable Gelada Baboon is somewhat less of a mutually beneficial affair.

Gelada Baboons.. the bane of Dereje’s existence

As the family’s crops nears harvesting, it rests upon the shoulders of Dereje and his younger sister Maaza to defend their fields from the feisty crop-raiding baboons, a duty that regularly requires them to sleep in caves away from home in order to stop these early rising primates before they strike.

Seeing off the unwelcome visitors

. . .

Here is a quick mixed-up selection of my favourite Images from these two very different adventures…

Mongolia: Silau, Berik’s father with his own beautiful eagle

Ethiopia: On our way to Dereje’s village we stumbled across a Christening Ceremony

Ethiopia: Dereje and his sisters herd the family’s cattle to a sleeping cave at sunset

Mongolia: Riding through the Altai Mountains looking for foxes

Ethiopia: Easter celebrations in the Simien Mountains

Ethiopia: Dereje’s family is forced to grow their crops on incredibly steep slopes

Mongolia: Berik’s eagle’s first hunt

Ethiopia: The kids warm themselves around a fire during a night at a cave

Mongolia: Epic eagle hunter is epic! Silau flies his bird

Mongolia: Berik’s friend who also hunts with eagles

Ethiopia: Dereje slingshots a troupe of baboons

Ethiopia: One of the many houses at which we stopped for tea on the walk to Dereje’s

Mongolia: Berik pets his eagle Balapan

Ethiopia: Maaza, Berik’s sister at her lookout post

. . .

Thank you and much respect to the two young men who inspired these fantastic stories. May you live long and prosperous lives!